WordPress now accepting payment in Bitcoin

Becomes the first well-known company to take Bitcoin.

Bitcoin users of the world, unite! Or rather, unite around the fact that you can now buy WordPress upgrades via the digital cryptocurrency. WordPress.com (the cloud version of the blogging platform, as opposed to WordPress.org, which runs on individual servers) has announced that it will now accept payment for its digital goods in Bitcoin, in addition to credit cards and PayPal.

“This is a huge boost for Bitcoin—this is the first time that a well-known company is taking Bitcoin,” Jerry Brito, a researcher at George Mason University, who has studied Bitcoin extensively, told Ars.

“The fact that a company like WordPress is taking Bitcoin, it shows that [the currency] is widespread enough to trust it, but I wonder after a year if they can tell us how much of their revenue will be paid in Bitcoin... It's going to introduce a lot of people to Bitcoin and it’s a vote of confidence.”

WordPress explained that it wants to make it easier for its customers—who might be buying a $5 custom design, for example—to pay for those goods.

“PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions,” wrote Andy Skelton, a WordPress developer, in a blog post. “Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.”

Skelton also wrote that WordPress would honor its refund policy in Bitcoin.

He explained that when a payment is made via Bitcoin, BitPay processes it, then converts the amount into US dollars at the moment the transaction is made. Then, the following day, BitPay sends a payment to WordPress, in dollars, in a single lump sum of all the transactions from the previous day—while taking a 2.69 percent fee, of course.

So far, Gallippi says that while BitPay does work with 1,500 other smaller companies, WordPress is now certainly the most well-known. He also hopes that the new arrangement could pave the way for future deals with other companies.

“Personally I’ve talked to hundreds of businesses and they look at what we have and they say that nobody is asking for Bitcoin, and to please come back when it’s more popular,” he told Ars.

Because, apparently, there are a huge number of Bitcoins being stockpiled all over doesn't this mean that the "currency" is going to fall horribly if people start cashing in? Doesn't that make it a very volitile commodity? This doesn't sound like a great idea, but if someone else takes all the risks... who cares?

“Personally I’ve talked to hundreds of businesses and they look at what we have and they say that nobody is asking for Bitcoin, and to please come back when it’s more popular,” he told Ars.

Okay...but if it's purely on a commission system and there's no baseline contract fee or anything, then what's the harm in adding it as an option?

If someone wants to buy something from you, you still need to interact with BitPay to charge the customer the right amount of Bitcoins and ensure you get the right amount of USD from BitPay. Building that process into your infrastructure probably has nontrivial development and operational costs.

Bitcoin is here to stay, only question is when it reaches a critical mass to actually pull some % of transactions from PP and CC's.

However given that Bitcoin is 3 years old, and not backed by a government, but only by people, it is astonishing that is has gained this much popularity and is used by this many people. No other currency/commodity has gained this much notoriety and usage in comparison historically.

The only reason to why people dont pay with Bitcoin as much as with $ and other currencies is because they value Bitcoin higher as a currency. People in the Bitcoin industry all think (and hope) that the price will reach gold levels.

I am not clear about something. Will WordPress's services be priced at fixed BTC, or at fixed USD and then variable BTC based on the current exchange rate? If the latter, it would be a stretch to call it a vote of confidence in BTC, but rather a no risk expansion into a new currency with BitPay absorbing all the risks.

Because, apparently, there are a huge number of Bitcoins being stockpiled all over doesn't this mean that the "currency" is going to fall horribly if people start cashing in? Doesn't that make it a very volitile commodity? This doesn't sound like a great idea, but if someone else takes all the risks... who cares?

So you're saying that the price of Bitcoins is likely to fall, now that the biggest news in its history just happened?

In the ideal theoretical market, the purchaser would buy bitcoins with his local currency, and then seconds later pay them to the seller, who would seconds later sell them off to someone else in exchange for whatever currency he wanted/could get.

IF bitcoin volatility takes place over hours and days rather than seconds and IF the buyer can always find someone to sell him some bitcoins and IF the seller can always instantly unload his bitcoins THEN what's the risk? (there are several, but they aren't what you were suggesting)

*For a single transaction* it's effectively like paypal or a CC, except anonymous and non-reversible (even if the product isn't delivered) - it's a way for money to change hands. It's an exchange medium, not a way to store wealth. It's the people hoarding bitcoins and speculating on them anyway that are taking risks. This was all explained in the original Ars articles on bitcoins.

A currency cannot become a significant part of an economy unless people can borrow and lend in the currency. Given that bitcoin based contracts are not enforceable in American courts (the court will always award settlement in USD), bitcoin will never be anything more than a curiosity.

A currency cannot become a significant part of an economy unless people can borrow and lend in the currency. Given that bitcoin based contracts are not enforceable in American courts (the court will always award settlement in USD), bitcoin will never be anything more than a curiosity.

If you and I make a contract stating that you have to give me 10,000 bananas in exchange for 1 ounce of Gold is that unenforceable, too?

A currency cannot become a significant part of an economy unless people can borrow and lend in the currency. Given that bitcoin based contracts are not enforceable in American courts (the court will always award settlement in USD), bitcoin will never be anything more than a curiosity.

Truthfully I think bitcoin misses the point by constantly referring to itself as a currency...Even with mass adoption I can't ever see someone being paid in bitcoins; someone walking into a bank and getting a bitcoin loan; things like that what you think of as a real 'currency'What it is good at is transfers if you need to send someone money why bother with real cash and annoying banks when there is bitcoins? Convert a few dollars to bitcoins; move them to someone else and then convert them back to dollars.It's a far bigger threat to paypal then it is to the US dollar.

I am not clear about something. Will WordPress's services be priced at fixed BTC, or at fixed USD and then variable BTC based on the current exchange rate? If the latter, it would be a stretch to call it a vote of confidence in BTC, but rather a no risk expansion into a new currency with BitPay absorbing all the risks.

WordPress services will be price as they are now, in USD. Bitcoin in this case is used as a payment system. Many people who don't understand why anyone would value bitcoins themselves is because they don't realize it's the distributed payment system that is valuable - so long as that system has utility, and the coins are scarce, then they'll have a market price. People can move money anywhere in the world quickly by going into then out of Bitcoin, and it thus becomes like a money portal to transport value instantly and without restriction. Very powerful, needless to say.

Umm, you've already been able to buy grocery items from Bob's Red Mill for a while using bitcoin. Given that's tangible goods you can touch on store shelves, I don't see how a virtual blog software provider is the first "real company" to take Bitcoin.

What Andy Skelton said is exactly the same I said for probably 2 years now. Its not that Bitcoin is better than PayPal or credit cards, its that credit cards and PayPal are very limited if we talk about global ecommerce. PayPal is blocked in allot of countries, most of Latin America countries are blocked, and if we go global the countries that can´t work with PayPal is huge.

If we talk about credit cards the situation is probably worst. As opposed to the US, Europe, where kids have prepaid cards, in the rest of the world having a Visa or Mastercard means you have a decent income, most banks will no open a bank account without at least 5,000$ or 10,000$ minimum deposit. The richest the country, the easiest its to get a bank account and credit cards. This is the same reason why allot of people are paying via Western Union and other systems today, because they just don´t have a credit card.

Bitcoins are not as easy to get today, I agree. But they are not restricted by political reasons, banking systems or countries. This means that once someone has them, he can use them in what ever country he is, when he wants.

Wordpress in particular wants to probably be open to anyone, everywhere, and this can´t be done with PayPal or Credit cards today. Not to mention both of this system are not really designed to micro payments, the fees are just to expensive.

Are allot of user pay their fees now with Bitcoins in Wordpress? Probably not, because the ones that pay, are probably using another payment system already, and it will take time until the word gets out, its not like someone is going to get bitcoins just because of Wordpress, but what they did, is just give a vote of confidence, so more people will start to look into Bitcoins, and the more people do, the more they will open themselves as well to global ecommece, which is exactly what they want. To be able to accept payments from anyone, everywhere in the world.

I do hope that bit coins become much more prominent and support this decision. If we take the control if currency from governments, we might actually convince them to start thinking that they need to be responsible.

Pretty much, yes. It's not a very good currency for many reasons, the worst of which is the tendency of people to hoard it in times if financial panic, which just makes the panic worse and brings an economy to it's knees. (Look at the once a decade deflationary spirals pre-1920). Bitcoin is even worse. Not only is the supply fixed, but it's supply cannot grow at the same rate as an economy.

So Wordpress actually isn't accepting Bitcoins. It is enabling the payment of its accounts through a Bitcoin trader who gives Wordpress US dollars converted from deposited Bitcoins.

How does this make Bitcoin more "valid" as a currency?

This definitely makes Bitcoin more valid. Not necessary as 'currency' to hold, but clearly as 'currency' to use in money transfer.

Its easy to see that if more companies accept Bitcoin payments in ANY form, then Bitcoin will benefit, from few reasons like increased trust and increased visibility. And that means more people will decide not only to use temporary bitcoins to pay, but later also more people will decide its safe to hold some of their wealth in bitcoin.

As a side note, what you said above is exactly same for most US companies that would accept EUR payment. They set price of their goods in US$, and allows you to pay EUR, but then in most cases convert that EUR in US$ to avoid risks of currency fluctuations.

So your argument would say that if US company decide to allow payments in EUR, that does not make EUR more valid currency?

A currency cannot become a significant part of an economy unless people can borrow and lend in the currency. Given that bitcoin based contracts are not enforceable in American courts (the court will always award settlement in USD), bitcoin will never be anything more than a curiosity.

Contracts are contracts. Just as an American court should hear a case about breach of a contract denominated in gold, so too should it with a case regarding denomination in Bitcoin. The fact that Bitcoin is digital doesn't mean it doesn't have property value nor that contracts wouldn't apply.

Even with mass adoption I can't ever see someone being paid in bitcoins; .

If bitcoins are not viewed as a currency by a government, then would taxes need to be paid on a bitcoin salary?

Taxes are not a problem.

The government will always find a way to collect taxes. If necessary they can completely overhaul the entire tax system (it happened in Australia 12 years ago).

Whatever we do as citizens, they will adjust to compensate. As long as they find some way to collect enough revenue to keep the country running smoothly, and as long as it's somewhat fair who pays how much tax, I'm happy.

So a product you can get for free is accepting a currency you can make out of thin air?

Yes in a sense. Except that everybody accepts it and uses it as a form of currency with the ridiculous security of hashing and international certificate of proof, all anonymously. So if you decided to do Pirokobo dollars, nobody is gonna accept it.